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Former church hall in Hazleton becomes gym

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ELLEN F. O'CONNELL/Staff Photographer
Jim Kapuschinsky, owner of Lift, stands on the third level of his fitness center located in the former Holy Trinity Parish Center on North Wyoming Street in Hazleton on Monday.

Some people used to spend their free time playing bingo in the former Holy Trinity Slovak Church parish center on North Wyoming Street.

Now, people spend their free time there getting a workout.

Jim Kapuschinsky has transformed the 10,000-square-foot hall into Lift, a gym that has weightlifting and workout equipment, a running track and a sauna.

Kapuschinsky, a Hazleton resident, said he always wanted to run his own gym, and did that in a portion of the former Hazleton Downtown Athletic Club on West Broad Street for three and a half years.

"I've been buying equipment from other gyms and other places and storing it because I had plans to have a place like this," said Kapuschinsky, who also has a full-time job at the PPL Susquehanna nuclear power plant near Berwick.

"When it went up for sale ... I always thought this would be a good place for a gym."

With the help of family and friends, it took Kapuschinsky a little over a year to transform the bingo hall into a gym.

There's equipment on the former bingo floor, on a stage and on the second floor, which was expanded.

Upstairs is a smaller version of downstairs, plus the running track.

"If you don't want to be by the main crowd it's like your own private area," he said.

A second-floor catwalk, which didn't go all the way around the building, does now. People can either walk or run around the catwalk/track. It is one of the features Kapuschinsky feels makes Lift unique.

"We put down a special industrial urethane with two types of sand on the track, to give it that grit," he said.

"We are the only fitness center that has a sauna. We have the most equipment in town, and we have a lot of off-street parking."

Lift also has a full locker room, with hair dryers and hand dryers mounted on the wall.

In order to save energy, some second-floor windows were blocked, energy-efficient lighting was installed and the building's heating system was converted from oil to natural gas.

The fact that the red-and-gray interior paint job resembles Hazleton Area High School colors is just a coincidence.

"I know it matches the Cougars," Kapuschinsky said. "My old gym was all gray. I wanted another color that would stand out. We tried orange, and it didn't look right. Red really stands out and gives it a little color."

Kapuschinsky also put up large murals of New York City - especially Times Square - and pictures of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"There was so much open space on the walls," he said. "We wanted something to brighten it up. I didn't know what kind of theme to go with, then I saw these."

One portion of the complex that is undeveloped is the basement, which has a full kitchen and four classrooms with movable walls that can open into one large room. Kapuschinsky wants to develop an aerobics room there.

Kapuschinsky said family members and friends helped him refinish the wood floor, paint the interior, build the sauna, showers and restrooms, and install lockers so customers have a place to store gym bags when they come in to work out. They've also helped him run the gym.

"We did a lot of the work ourselves, like refinish the floor and the painting," Kapuschinsky said. "The steelwork and electrical work was done by professionals. If it hadn't been for family and friends, this place would not be here."

In the short time Lift has been open, its membership has grown.

"We got a lot of members from the old place, but lost some because we downsized before the move," he said.

"It seems like a lot of people are naming their places with one-word names."

jdino@standardspeaker.com

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